Making the Market for Digital Informationin an Attention Economy

Bill Densmore, consulting fellow to the

Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute University of Missouri

Densmorew@missouri.edu

18 August, 2010 / American Center / U.S. Embassy / Prague, Czech Republic

Challenge: How to sustain values, principals, purposes of journalism?• Mass markets splintering / mass customization• Search advertising effective competitor (Google’s Schmidt: “invent something”)

• Classifieds done better on the web • Atomization of content / consumer bundles • We go anywhere for information-without-walls• What sustains journalism in this environment?

ORIGINS

Innovation happens everywhere• Café Nase adresa experiment watched in U.S.

• Handelsblad digital editions in Netherlands

• Recent history of privately owned press

• Free of legacy dependency on big profits

• Not all disruption starts in America

Setting the scene

Change at hyperspeed • Mastering change not really possible

• Schmidt: 5 exabytes info from dawn to 2003

• Schmidt: 5 exabytes now generated in two days

• Exabyte =

•Two caveats: Not an expert; here to learn

Setting the scene

The new info economy: attention • Making sense: 76,000 Wikileaks pages

• Information moves fast: 4G at 50 megabits

• End of the infomation gatekeeper?

• Most news, info roams free; “atomized”

• But unique information still has value

Assessing value

New/old challenge for news media • Finding (or originating) unique, actionable info

• Sharing it with right people, right time

•Demonstrating constitent trustworthiness

• Assert value in doing so

• WHAT’S CHANGED: Platforms, 24/7, “audience”

Assessing value

About Reynolds Journalism Institute • Foster ideas, research, experiments

• That sustain journalism’s values, principles purpose

• Fellowships, seminars, reports, incubator

• Digital Publishing Alliance (publishers)

• More than 2,500 journalism students

Studying landscape

Media Giraffe Project at UMass Amherst • Finding, spotlighting media innovators

• Which foster participatory democracy, community

• Database of entrepreneurship

• “Journalism that Matters” meetings in U.S.

• Special interest in local online news communities

Studying landscape

U.S. media landscape • Project 2% decline in print advertising 2011

• Trying to cut to survival as ads go direct/web

• Key experiments watched:

* Patch.com (AOL) – 400 site expansion * Next Issue Media (Hearst, News Corp., Time Inc., Meredith, Conde Naste)

* Journalism Online – battle to “charge” * Groupon advertising model* Regulation: Privacy / “network neutrality” * What will Facebook do?

State of U.S. media

Participation: End of advertising? • Is marketing one-to-one advertising?

• Vendor-delivered direct: Publisher bylass?

• What is your attention worth? To whom?

• Upending marketing: Project VRM

• Hour glass vs. the cylinder: Participatory culture

•Participatory culture: the new village square

Setting the scene

The next newsroom • Café, volunteers, sometimes partisan

• New pampleteers, from community

• Lawyer, doctor, accountant . . . Infovalet?

• Competition over service, point of view

• Ebb and flow of value

Setting the scene

End of mass markets • What comes after publishing, broadcasting?

• Automated, customized, one-to-one

• Share payments for custom info, sponsorships

•

Setting the scene

Trust, identity, info commerce • Journalism not sustained outside print, b’cast

• Advertising abundant, rates fall $5/CPM vs. $50

• Result: Journalism not sustained by ads alone

• Value to aggregators – Google, Yahoo

• Possible solution: Information Trust Association

Scoping problem

The missing piece • Internet assumed trust and identity

• User names/passwords only partially portable

• Financial accountability not portable

• Opt-in universal account desirable

• Enables instant sharing of valued information

Scoping problem

Information economy blueprint• Less than 1% of web time on newspaper sites

• A minute a day on newspaper site (improving)

• Level of engagement small c/w social sites

• How to get from gatekeeper to infovalet

• New ethic of conversation, community

Scoping problem

Debating the devices • iPad – proprietary, elegant, simple, “great UI”

• Apollo, fluent, FlipBoard – agregators jump in

• Publishers still trying to preserve “product”

• But at the expense of user relationship

• KEY PRIORITY: Focus on user / info from anywhere

Solutions

The News Social Network • TRUSTWORTHINESS – Journalists key convenors

• ACCESS – The CATV (cable TV) example

• IDENTITY – Privacy, ‘personal’ control

* Aew nonymity breeds spyware* Identity enables trust

• VALUE – The goal posts keep moving

Solutions

Making the marketplace • Information unbundled, copyright laws can’t fix it

• Consumers sensitive to privacy, see value of their attention

• Advertising morphs to opt-in, targetted, direct marketing

• Gatekeeping publishers will be left out of social stream

• Trust, identity building blocks of new info ecosystem

• Infovalet services earn value finding what’s needed

Wrapping up

The blueprint: A new ‘model’• Information base camps• Find, access information from anywhere • But with method to pay • Subscriptions, per-click, rewards • Seven examples – including Visa

Wrapping up

ITA scenario: Everybody wins? • World-focused, not-for-profit • Broad constituencies among directors • Funding by memberships, transaction fees • Sustain journalism’s values, principles, purposes• Potential convening host: RJI-Missouri

Wrapping up

ITA stewardship •Voluntary privacy, trust, identity standards• Research, test and commission key tech • Sanction protocols for sharing users and content• Direct multisite user authentication services• Enable web microaccounting/settlement • Web tracking/billing for “atomized” content• Consumer choice of infovalet by purpose/nation

Wrapping up

Who will stand up? • In a 16 March, 2009, Time magazine story about the Project on Excellence in Journalism's 2009 "State of the [U.S.] News Media," report, M.J. Stephey wrote: " . . . (I)f solutions aren't obvious, the report's overall message is: Will the future leaders of journalism please stand up?"

A call to action

Thank-you. Bill DensmoreDensmorew@rjionline.org(+001) 617-448-6600